Nantang DAO Chronicles (Part II)

Find a way out

The story of the Nantang DAO continues, despite facing numerous challenges, everything is still emerging constantly. The community explores forward through trial and error, seeking new possibilities. Some core members have gone to Jianta Village in Pujiang County, Chengdu, to attempt to initiate new projects, trying to find the true intersection of "rural development and Web3," and to build a "rural entrepreneurship DAO." At the same time, some choose to stay local in Nantang, proposing the initiative of "living well," by organizing local young people to engage in blockchain co-learning, band activities, and more, continuously cultivating the community. One side explores outward, while the other is rooted locally, with both paths running parallel without conflict. Opening up new roads has always been filled with hardships, but as the saying goes: "Pessimists are often right, but optimists keep moving forward." The optimists of the Nantang DAO are writing their own answers with action.

attract more professionals

Talent is the cornerstone of any organization's development. Cikey reflected that the early South Pond DAO failed to effectively attract talents who truly understand blockchain and Web3, coupled with the general lack of mature rural construction experience among its members, leading the community to take many detours in its exploration. Fortunately, the community has recognized this shortcoming and has taken a series of improvement measures. Currently, South Pond DAO plans to invite senior experts from the industry to form the "South Pond DAO Governance Advisory Group" to provide professional mediation for internal disputes and to output systematic suggestions for the strategic direction of each quarter. In addition, through the "Rural Construction Web3 Bilateral Enlightenment Program", community members have participated multiple times in domestic and international Web3 activities and have gone into universities for presentations, which not only enhanced their own professional quality but also attracted more professionals who are passionate about Web3 and rural construction to join. This two-way interaction has opened up new avenues for talent recruitment. Excitingly, new members are continuously joining, injecting new vitality into the community. Among them are those skilled in artistic creation, who can add creativity to rural cultural activities; those proficient in brand promotion, who provide support for South Pond DAO's external communication; and those who have made significant achievements in organizational research, contributing wisdom to the optimization of community governance mechanisms. These new members bring not only professional skills but also open up more possibilities for the future development of South Pond DAO.

Facing the world, drawing on experience

What are the real needs of rural areas? Can Web3 inject new momentum for rural development? The implementation of DAO is not only a topic for Nantang but also a global challenge. Nantang DAO has researched several international DAO cases, many of which provide insights closely related to rural construction. For example, after the earthquake, Yamakoji Village in Japan launched the "Nishikigoi NFT", centered around the local specialty "Nishikigoi", to address the challenges of reconstruction and an aging population, viewing NFT holders as "digital villagers". The DAO community formed as a result attracted over 1,750 members globally, raising funds to support regional sustainable development. Although this model did not employ typical DAO elements such as smart contracts or on-chain treasury, it effectively addressed local issues. The experience of Yamakoji Village is quite enlightening for Nantang DAO. Recently, Yamakoji Village further proposed the idea of a "dual-layer DAO-driven governance revolution": using the Yamakoji DAO as a carrier to achieve co-governance between physical villagers and digital villagers through Snapshot voting; and using the Shihua People's DAO as a platform to promote cross-regional collaboration (e.g., Shuiye Village, Tianlong Gorge), building a "LocalDAO network". This model has a similar essence to the current development path of Nantang DAO and should provide valuable reference.

Another relevant case is CabinDAO------a decentralized autonomous organization dedicated to building network cities through community collaboration and technological innovation. Its development process is divided into four stages: the Creator Era from 2020 to 2021, establishing "Creator Cabins" as a funding project for creator residency; from 2021 to 2022, with the thriving of DAOs, Cabin also began to enter the DAO service provider stage, during which the community created numerous DAO media brands and developed DAO tools such as on-chain and physical passport systems aimed at online communities; from 2022 to 2023, with the turbulence in the crypto market, the community began to significantly reduce the DAO team and focused on creating natural communities for digital nomads and building a global co-living network; starting in early 2024, the team's keyword became "family community," and the team decided to establish deeper connections with local communities. They launched the Neighborhood Accelerator program, proposing to create a community where friends live nearby and raise children together.

What is worth learning and reflecting on is that after several years of continuous exploration, the Cabin team believes it is more suitable to exist as a loose community network rather than a startup or DAO. On May 8, 2025, Cabin officially announced its dissolution, deciding to abandon DAO grants and commercialization projects, and shift to a purely community-driven network. This decision stems from a reflection on the different models of entrepreneurship, DAO, and community networks: "Venture capital-backed startups are best suited for small focused teams that can quickly pivot to seek short-term financially viable high-growth business opportunities. DAO is most suitable as a trusted neutral governance mechanism for distributing ecosystem grants from existing cash flow protocols. Community-driven networks are best suited to serve as loosely connected organizations, allowing many individuals to independently explore adjacent paths and build what they find most interesting and valuable." For practitioners of rural community DAOs, how to find the positioning of DAO in rural communities and what value DAO can bring to local communities is undoubtedly a common proposition faced by the world.

Deeply rooted in the local area, seeking advantages

While learning from global pioneers, how to take root locally requires in-depth research and analysis based on local realities. Nantang DAO needs to comprehensively assess local resources such as economy, human resources, spiritual culture, politics, social capital, geographical location, and natural environment, in order to formulate practical and feasible goals and action programs.

Nantang Village is known for its historical experience in democratic governance, and the attention from society is the greatest advantage of this land. Looking back at the history of Nantang, it can be found that the desire for democracy and rights has never ceased, with its important historical nodes always resonating with the advanced organizational concepts in the context of the great era------ from the end of 1990 to the beginning of 2000, civic movements surged, and the rights protection lawyer movement and environmental movement began to rise, allowing citizens to safeguard their rights through legal means and collective action. Nantang also began to organize farmers' rights protection struggles, implement grassroots elections, and carry out villagers' autonomy. Starting from 2003-2004, the goal of farmer organization gradually shifted from rights protection to construction. As Yang Yunbiao stated: "In the past, we approached rights protection from a confrontational perspective. After establishing cooperatives, our daily work is to use livelihood development, cultural construction, and rural autonomy construction to safeguard our rights." Later, in the process of farmer organization, they drew on Western civilization, introduced deliberation rules, and achieved the localization of advanced governance concepts (in 2008), during which the economic and cultural undertakings of the village developed rapidly. Yang Yunbiao pointed out in a rural construction dialogue: "Rural revitalization is not simply industrial revitalization or organizational revitalization, but must return to 'the revitalization of people,' and think about how to make people live with smiles and dignity." Today, the establishment of Nantang DAO continues the tradition of organizational innovation, marking the latest attempt to integrate local ethics with modern civilization.

From rights protection organizations to parliamentary rules, from cooperatives to Nantang DAO, Nantang has attempted different forms of democratic governance over the past 30 years. However, it is important to realize that regardless of how innovative the organizational form is, the key lies in whether it focuses on "the link between people" and whether it addresses the fundamental needs of local farmers. It is reassuring that the various attempts made in the past and currently in progress have already produced a good "link" effect. After living and learning together for a period of time, some wonderful chemical reactions are quietly occurring between DAO members and cooperative members. During my field study, I observed local young people actively using Robert's Rules of Order to efficiently negotiate and reach a consensus on division of labor when facing the challenges of collective cooking. I also sensed the budding awareness of equality among local youth; they have begun to spontaneously organize themselves to collectively reflect on issues such as the lack of transparency in decision-making, unclear responsibilities, and ambiguous rules in local work and life affairs. This emergence of independent thinking and critical spirit will be a valuable asset for Nantang's future development. On another front, cooperatives are also broadening their horizons, planning to create a "third space" to serve digital nomads, in order to connect a wider range of young groups. Based on recognizing each other's needs, doing things in a mutually respectful way might become a driving force for new possibilities to emerge from this land.

In Conclusion

Despite the conflicts, the integration of rural construction and Web3 holds promising prospects. Through the test of time and practice, both sides are expected to reach a consensus amid the conflicts, forming a governance model that balances individual autonomy and collective collaboration. In future development, Nantang DAO, while promoting Web3 technology and governance models, needs to be rooted in the cultural soil of the countryside and the genuine interests of the villagers, focusing on addressing the most fundamental needs of rural areas, so that new digital technologies can truly touch the soul of rural society.

How to view the exploration of DAO in rural areas?

Rural construction and DAO are like two circles that originally touch each other: rural construction carries the practice and sentiment of revitalizing the countryside, while DAO reshapes trust and cooperation mechanisms with a decentralized technological philosophy. In recent years, these two fields have begun to intersect, attracting Web3 practitioners who are dedicated to the countryside and those involved in rural construction who are eager to embrace new technologies. However, due to the short exposure time and differences in values and cultural backgrounds, this intersection inevitably generates friction, including clashes between decentralized autonomy logic and rural collectivist culture, as well as the integration of foreign ideas and local traditions.

The core issue lies in how DAO, as a new form of organization, can find its role and capacity boundaries within the rural governance structure. Taking the practice of Nantang DAO as an example, if the issuance of Nantang beans is merely a digital reproduction of the traditional rural governance point system (such as the work point system), and its usability and ease of use even struggle to surpass other existing "alternative currencies"; if token-based voting is simply a transition to direct democracy on a Web3 digital platform, but effectively excludes villagers from the democratic decision-making process, how much change can we expect this so-called organizational "innovation" to bring to rural society? Although these questions are specifically embodied in Nantang DAO, they are essentially universal inquiries for all future rural construction DAOs or similar organizations.

Moreover, it must be acknowledged that DAO is not the ultimate answer to all organizational governance issues. No organizational design is perfect, and the trade-offs and choices in the governance process are key for organizations to address sustainable development challenges. Different organizational forms have their own advantages and disadvantages, coexisting rather than replacing one another. If we consider decentralization and autonomy as a spectrum, various types of organizations throughout history, as well as different stages of development within the same organization, are positioned at different points on this spectrum. Many DAO failures stem from a lack of adequate understanding of this issue, where the intention to undertake business projects reveals that a more centralized approach may be better. There is a desire to allocate funds using DAO methods, but often most people are not beneficiaries, and economic benefits tend to be monopolized by a few. Some DAOs focused on building community networks discover, after operating for a period, that they seem unable to find their place as a DAO. A vivid example is when the Uniswap Foundation, during a vote, decided to allocate $165 million in liquidity mining rewards for Uniswap v4 and Unichain, which incited anger within the DAO. Members questioned why the foundation should spend money, while the centralized entity Uniswap Labs ( earned millions from front-end fees?